PARTISAN REVIEW
said to Wilhelm, "You want to make yourself into my cross. But I am
not going to pick up a cross. I'll see you dead, Wilky, by Christ, before
I let you do that to me."
"Father, listen! Listen!"
"Go away from me now. It's torture for me to look at you, you
slob!" cried Dr. Adler.
Wilhelm's blood rose up madly, in anger equal to his father's, but
then it sank down and left him helplessly aching with misery. He said
stiffly, and with a strange sort of formality, "Okay, Dad, that'll be
enough. That's about all we should say." And he stalked out heavily
by the door adjacent to the swimming pool and the steam room, and
labored up two long flights from the basement. Once more he took
the elevator to the lobby on the mezzanine.
He inquired at the desk for Dr. Tamkin.
The clerk said, "No, I haven't seen him. But I think there's some–
thing in the box for you."
"Me? Give it here," said Wilhelm and opened a telephone message
from his wife. It read, "Please phone Mrs. Wilhelm on return. Urgent."
Whenever he received an urgent message from his wife he was
always thrown into a great fear for the children. He ran to the phone
booth, spilling out the change from his pockets onto the little curved
steel shelf under the telephone, and dialed the Digby number.
"Yes?" said his wife. Scissors barked at the phone.
"Margaret ?"
"Yes, hello." They never exchanged any other greeting. She in–
stantly knew his voice.
"The boys all right?"
"They're out on their bicycles. Why shouldn't they be all right?
Scissors, quiet!"
"Your message scared me," he said. "I wish you wouldn't make
urgent so common."
"I had something to tell you."
Her familiar unbending voice awakened in him a kind of hungry
longing, not for Margaret bu t for the peace he had once known.
"You sent me a post-dated check," she said. "I can't allow that.
It's already five days past the first. You dated your check for the
twelfth."
"Well, I have no money. I haven't got it. You can't send me to
prison for that. I'll be lucky if I can raise it by the twelfth."
She answered, "You better get it, Tommy."
"Yes? What for?" he said. "Tell me. For the sake of what? To
tell lies about me to everyone? You ..."
She cut him off. "You know what for . I've got the boys to bring up."
Wilhelm in the narrow booth broke into a heavy sweat. He dropped
his head and shrugged while with his fingers he arranged nickels, dimes
and quarters in rows. "I'm doing my best," he said. "I've had some
bad luck. As a matter of fact, it's been so bad that I don't know where
I am. I couldn't tell you what day of the week this is. I can't think
straight. I'd better not even try. This has been one of those days, Mar-
